After
by pumkkin
Summary: The war is over, and the rebels have won. But now Katniss must face her decision to put Capitol children into the very last Hunger Games, and every nightmare and regret that comes with it.
1. Chapter 1

Every single soul looking up at the humungous television in Everdeen Square holds their breath. The children are roped off in accordance with their age, and most of them are crying. Every year they would watch as children the same age as them were cast into the arena, they would laugh, cry and smile along with their favourites, cheer for them and boo those hunting them, follow their every move from the comfort of their living rooms. But now the tables have turned, and their stepping right into the reality show. It is the 76th Hunger Games, the last ever to be held according to the new treaty, and the children reaped are the spoilt, fat darlings of the Capitol.

I'm watching them, the kids who wait anxiously. Some tried to run, but a quick glance of a Peacekeepers gun and they step back in line. Some are yelling for their mothers and fathers, who like the parents in every district, are kept separate surrounded by the white guards. I peek behind the curtain. It's been five minutes since all of the children were accounted for and organised, and although this is great payback for all the punishments inflicted on the districts, the memories keep on flooding back to me, and make my stomach churn and my hatred waver.

"Katniss, it's time." There's Peeta's firm grip on my shoulder, and it steadies me. Since the war ended I have barely left his side, I don't want him taken from me but I keep on thinking it will happen. I relax instantly, and turn to face him, smiling.

"Ok. Just give me a sec." I take deep breaths, the memory of fear still gnawing away at me. But I must be strong, and show courage. Although the war is over and the people of Panem are harmonising, I'm still the Mockingjay. They still look to me for guidance, and react to situations as I do.

We walk out on stage, me and Peeta, holding hands and, when I catch us on the screens, looking fabulous. Peeta has grown a bit taller, and built up some more muscle, and the suit fits him like a glove. I'm wearing black, still in mourning for Prim and for the thing I'm about to do. It's a strapless dress, with black pumps and shawl and netting poking out from under the skirt. My prep team have learnt well from my mother, and put it up like on the day of my first reaping. That seems so long ago now.

Many people clap and whoop and cheer when we come out on stage, but hardly any of them are capitol citizens, who look at us with disdain. That's one of the new laws to come into action in Panem that citizens are allowed to live and work wherever they like. Only a few thousand have moved so far, most to the capitol to go to school, and we've also raised the pay for those still working in their districts.

"People of Panem, 76 years ago, the Capitol fought 13 Districts in a struggle for power. It boasted it destroyed one of them, and kept the others under strict and unfair laws, forcing poverty and division within the districts. But the Capitol lied, District 13 lived on, and the districts realised they were stronger than the Capitol, and took back their freedom."

Peeta's doing that thing where he only sees the words and nothing else. The power of words is one stronger than any steel, any bullet or bomb. One of the many reasons I love him.

"The Capitol punished the Districts for wanting their freedom, and forced each district to give them a sacrifice of two children, who would then be forced to kill one another for survival. The Hunger Games. Every year, for 75 years, the districts lived in fear for their children, but no more. We will show the Capitol and its people that we are forgiving, loving and willing to live peacefully. But first they must experience the loss of their children, the pain and misery and utter helplessness, as we did for so long. We know that once is enough."

I grip his hand harder, and feel the silence wash over the crowd. Peeta does a quick side-glance at me, and I know it's my turn to speak.

"This year, the 76th Hunger Games, will be the last. There will be twelve girls and twelve boys chosen from the Capitol. I think we will start, as usual, with ladies first."

There's a list of names, daughters, nieces and sisters of the highest in Snows arsenal. I unfold the parchment, which is sealed by the new Panem emblem, the Mockingjay, my symbol, and two hands interlocking in front of it. I pull open at the wax seal, and begin to read names. After I say a name, I wait until they're on stage before I read the next.

"Aurora Lychee."

A dark skinned girl from the fifteen year olds steps forward. She knew it was coming, and you could see it on her face. Her father was Snows right hand man and top advisor. Although he's dead now, I can hear a shrill cry from the parents section, and a few people cart away a hysterical woman. At least her daughter has more composure.

"Rhea Forhet, Sonia Dancer, Valecia Knight, Fabia Levy, Hilary Kit, Georgina Olympus, Leta Rice, Donia Hart …"

We did not let the people of Panem know exactly who of the highest ranking would have their children reaped. There are hundreds of people, advisors, Head Peacekeepers, war strategists who killed thousands in District 12, among others. Of course we didn't allow them to live for their crimes against humanity, but their spouses didn't kill anyone, and their children were innocent. That's why we're doing this, to show them how innocence can be taken away. While I'm reading out those names, I think about why we're taking children away from their parents to die, like every horrifying year of my life. But it's too late now, to go back and change it. I just have to live with my decision. There's hardly anything worse that could happen in my nightmares anymore.

People in the parents section are being escorted out by Peacekeepers as the names keep coming. A few of them fainted, which seems dramatic. It is not them going into the arena. I feel terrible when I call out for a plain faced twelve year old, who looks just like Prim at her first reaping. Then I remember seeing her get blown to bits trying to save children, and my resolve hardens once again.

"Bellona Snow." A white haired, rosy-cheeked fourteen-year-old steps forward, and as she walks to her seat, fixes me with an icy stare. She has a rose fastened on her dress, and when the smell reaches my nose, I nearly throw up. I read out the last two names in a hurry. One of them, a sixteen year old, lets tears roll down her fat cheeks. I can guess who will be taken out in the blood bath instantly from this lot. But I see no winner, no fight for survival in them, and then it comes to me in a fist of resentment. They've never had to.

Peeta keeps his face very solemn when he reads out the boy names, and meets none of them in the eyes. Just calls their names, looks dead straight into the camera, picks another name, calls it, looks into the camera. The boys are arriving quickly on stage and it's getting crowded, all these kids who need to kill each other, but only want to kill me. Then the ceremonies over, and the kids are lead away by fifty Peacekeepers. There's no way to separate them by district or anything, so Plutarch is backstage, splitting them off into groups of two by another random selection. Boy and girl, together, sharing meals, homes and last few precious days they have.

When we were looking over the plans for the final Hunger Games, I initially wanted to rule out the parade and interviews, thinking that we were putting these kids through enough. Again my own compassion got in the way of the point, and they had to keep reminding me of my interview, my parade, how every year they made tributes look stupid in costumes, like pigs in a show. I finally agreed, though no one knew what to parade them around in.

"We shouldn't be as petty as the Capitol, making them dress up in coal miners outfits, or as trees, or naked. We should let them wear what they want, in the interview as well. This is about teaching the Capitol a lesson, not humiliating their children who are going to die. We should at least give them their dignity."

Peetas solid words are right again. Everyone agrees, and when we do finally see the tributes go to their interviews and in the parade, we get to see what the Capitol kids call fashion. Some are dressed in sparkly suits and puffy dresses. Some have tight elastic dresses that finish just below their butt. I scoff at the girl wearing that one. Others wear simple suits, or shirts and smart pants. But there's one who stands out for everyone there. On the last chariot, where Belladonna Snow and her tribute partner Tertius are pulled by brown shire horses. Tertius looks smart, waving at the crowd, but Belladonna sits in the chariot yawning, not paying attention, while she lounges in her pyjamas.

She wears the same for the interview, and when asked by Caesar Flickerman on the choice of her outfit, she replies, "I'm showing them that they don't own me. That I'm not a piece in _their_ games."

I'm sat in the audience, and I feel Peeta's hand squeeze mine harder than usual, because we both realise where we've heard those words. Up on the roof, of the Training Centre, where Peeta confessed his resolve to not be a pawn, and remind m I am not one either. Maybe if he hadn't said those words, I'd have never covered Rue in flowers, maybe never pulled those berries.

After that, I can't watch anymore. I leave the interviews before her buzzers gone off, and head home. Peeta tries to follow me, but I push him away.

"They were watching us Peeta, up on the roof. They saw everything!" I'm screaming at him now, as he pulls at my shoulders, my hands, everything to try and get me to face him. He knows that his face is the only comforting thing to me now, and I need to stay angry.

"Our most private moments were being watched by that snake and now she's using it against us. They knew long before the games were over that the star crossed lovers' thing was an act, and they still forced us to be their pawns for two years!" I'm not even talking to Peeta anymore, just walking and thinking my seething thoughts aloud.

Peeta finally gives my arm a good yank, and I'm swung round. He plants a soft, delicate kiss on my lips, and holds me close to him. He pulls away and looks me in the eyes, staring intently, before resting his mouth on my forehead.

"It may have been an act then Katniss, but it's not now. They aren't watching us anymore, and they never will again. You can say what you like, do what you like. You're free from them now Kat. We all are."

I sigh, burying my head in his chest, instantly calmed by the smooth sound of his voice and his scent.

I decide not to go to the training, even though I'm a Games advisor. I've left Plutarch to his game making devices, left him with the traps, the arena style, the weapons and food packs. I haven't seen a single detail, and I don't plan to until the live launch tomorrow night. We sit and watch the television, and watch the training scores go by as face after face come up, with a name and score. Out of all the tributes, the highest-ranking score was a seven from an eighteen year old, Arrian Hawkswind. None of the tributes are prepared, physically or mentally. And I sigh. At least in the districts we had twelve years to prepare for becoming a tribute, and it helps a lot. I hear from Peeta and Plutarch that half of the tributes had panic attacks or started bawling half way through their private training sessions, and the other half couldn't even string the damn bow, let alone fire an arrow from it. Apparently, I hear, that Bellona Snow decided to dance for her private session. Badly. But they gave her a five non-the-less. Plutarch said it was a less shocking version of my Seneca Crane thing.

Nighttime rolls around and Peeta climbs I bed with me. We kiss and cuddle, but be both don't feel like doing anything more. Children will die tomorrow, and that thought weighs heavily on both our hearts.

"Katniss? Why?" Peeta whispers through the dark, and I feel his warm breath on the back of my neck.

"You know why." I want to stop talking, and pretend to go to sleep like I've been doing these last few weeks leading up to the Hunger Games. When I do sleep, the nightmares intensify, and it's becoming harder for Peeta to wake me. Nowadays, they're about him, the feeling of me abandoning him in that electrified arena, and me watching through a two-way mirror while Snow tortures him. I hear him cry out, and I bang on the glass, shrieking his name and every curse word I know. It's only when Peeta's shaken me awake do I realise my screams have taken a new form. Every night I scream his name, and cry for his pain. It's all I can do not to spend the night sobbing into his chest.

"I thought that would have the opposite effect on you. Not wanting anymore people getting hurt." I hate it when he does this, and he always brings up these games and Prim when were about to go to sleep, because it's the only time when it's just me and him, in the dark. He knows that now all I will see in my dreams is Prim, catching on the fire I set alight.

"I don't want to talk about this Peeta. I hate it, the whole idea and you know that. But it has to be done, you know that too. To hold them accountable for seventy-five years of misery and hate and fear. Now go to sleep."

And he does. When I wake up from a nightmare about Prim, he's there, wiping the sweat from my forehead with the sheets and strokes my cheek. I wait for him to drift off, then quietly slip out and go onto the roof of our apartment complex, and watch the sunrise on the morning of the last ever Hunger Games.

In what they call 'The Games Room', me, Peeta, Plutarch, President Paylor, Annie, Johanna and a drunken Haymitch await the start of the games, along with over a hundred Game Makers all talking at once and organising the Launch Pad timings. The cameras are recording an empty launch room, and I stare with vacant eyes at the last place I saw Cinna, in an identical room to this one. But I try not to think of him bloody and beaten. I remember him handing me the Mockingjay pin that set a precedent for the rest of my life. His calming, thoughtful words. The exact look on his face when he told me 'I'm betting on you'. I miss him so much, but now there's so much in the world to miss, and I'm about to have a horrific flashback when I hear from a speaker, "And we're live in 5, 4, 3, 2 …"

A tribute enters the room. We've allowed the last people they see to be their families, a kindness not offered to the districts. This boy hugs his mother tightly, and I see a tear roll down his cheek, as does the rest of Panem. He shakes his brothers hand before pulling him into a hug, and he swings his toddler sister around, planting a thousand kisses on each cheek. Then it's all over, and a Peacekeeper steps in to usher out the family. She uses a metal detector and searches him for anything his family may have snuck in for him, but he comes up clean. Then the boy is on the launch pad, and we see the whole thing from his point of view. The door slides shut, and up he goes, through the ground and bursting out into sunlight, where the 60 second countdown begins.

And we see it. I let out a sound like a cross between a whimper and a gasp, Peeta pulls me close to him and sighs painfully. Haymitch takes a long drink from his bottle, and lowers his head, growling like an animal. Annie realises what it is, and clutches her swollen stomach. But it's Johanna who doesn't get it.

"What's it's supposed to be?" She sticks one hand on her hip, and another ruffling through her hair, which she's decided to grow long to cover up the bald patches. I can't speak, my throat is closed and all I can do it stare at the screen, transfixed by the picture in front of me. Finally Paylor answers for us.

"That, Johanna, is the ruined city of District 12."


	2. Chapter 2

Of course District 12 isn't still ruined, most of the survivors moved back there once it was cleaned of the bodies. And that's what I'm staring at now. They're everywhere, covered in ash, burnt to a crisp still trying to flee the fire that the Capitol brought down on them. I can smell it, the putrid flesh, the smoke and the bombs themselves. Peeta feeling me shaking and pulls me in tighter. They've added only one thing that doesn't reside as a terrifying memory. I big, worn, bomb impacted sign barely hanging to the metal pole saying 'District 12' in plain black letters. I hear Peeta sniff, and realise he's crying when a warm tear splashes onto my nose. He lost everything in 12. I lost my old home and a few old bits. If I'm a nervous wreck now he must be having a meltdown. I'm still wary that at any point he could revert back to his hijacked state, now more than ever, but as I try to wriggle away I feel his arms tightening around me. Not is a crushing kind of way, but in the way I asked him 'Stay with me'. In my head I whisper always.

The sixty second countdown is almost over when I realise they've been dropped in the Meadow, my Meadow which is now home to over seven thousand skeletons, that their desperate race for survival will trample over my neighbours, my friends, my father's friends, the people at the Hob. Then I realise it's all just a set, and nothing in there is real. It's all paint and wax bodies and concrete. I look up at Peeta and whisper to him.

"It's not real Peeta."

"I know Kat, but the memory is."

Then they're running, towards a blackened and crumbling Cornucopia. I didn't really know what would happen, whether the kids would just agree not to fight, whether there would be a bloodbath, alliances and game plans. Turns out the Capitol kids are worse than us.

No one knows how to use a weapon really, so they're punching and kicking each other to death. There are no alliances, no groups, every man for themselves in this high rollers game. The twelve-year-old girl I thought looked like Prim sneaks past the largest tributes, grabs a knife and pack, and then slides the knife into the side of another tribute. The girl falls to her knees in agony, crying out for her mother and for help, but her falling just lets the knife slide up her side, spraying blood over the little girl. Who is grinning manically.

In the space of ten minutes, seven are dead. Four died at the hands of weapons, knives, an axe, a sword, while the others had their head crushed by someone's boot. Annie runs off to the bathroom to puke after a few minutes, and I'm feeling ready to follow her, but I'm transfixed by the sheer malice of these kids. This is what I have caused, I tell myself. The arena cameras zoom in on the dead, and I catch her, Bellona Snow, a knife in her hand smeared with her own blood. They didn't show that part to the Panem audience, we just spotted it on one of the non-live cameras. Something no tribute has ever done. She killed herself.

I have to throw up now, but I can't make it to the bathroom because of Peeta's tight hold on me. I manage to get him to let go in time and make it to a trashcan. My head is reeling, my vision spinning. Why? Why would she do that. _To show them I'm not a piece in their games_. I throw up again and again. Mostly because she had the courage to do what me and Peeta didn't. But it wasn't to show up the oppressive rulers, to tell them that they can control our food, our rules and even our lives, but they can't control our spirits. But no, I know she did it out of revenge. For what specifically, I'll never know.

Peeta doesn't check on me, and I'm glad. It's the first time he's seen 12 in ruin. We didn't want to show him, in case it triggered a flashback and he went mutt on us, but the way he's handling it now, he's not overcome by terror and hatred. Only sadness and loss. But he doesn't cry, just watches the screen intently, following the running tributes as they make for the town. He knows every path and alley and building. The tributes don't, and as I finally stop retching I hear him take a loud inward breath. I turn to face the screen, where were following a fifteen year old red headed boy, as he breaks is way into the smouldering ruins of Peeta's bakery. Plutarch has been kind, only blackening the inside, leaving it more smoke damaged than anything, not the melted, burnt skeleton of a home I saw.

Peeta stares at it for a second, only a second, his eyes glistening. When the people of 12 went back to our district, most of it was torn down and rebuilt into larger, safer housing with running water and heating and electricity 24/7. Though Peeta got back to the district before most of the townspeople, he couldn't bring himself to visit his home, and I didn't pressure him. In fact, when we were walking through the square last week, he looked at the new building that stood on the graveyard of his bakery, and smiled. Muttered something to himself, then answered. He still does that, but not often, like he has to get out the questions that still haunt him, even though he already knows the answer.

Then he's gone, out the room and out of the building. We're both runners, knowing that it's better not to see something than face it and have nightmares. I follow him, and when I catch him, we discuss Plutarch's controversial move.

"Why do you think he did that. Make our home part of the games Kat?"

"He's not doing it to remind us of what we've lost. It's for the Capitol. To show them the suffering they caused. Don't be sad. It's not even like that anymore, it's safe and clean and better."

"I know, but it's still our home, something precious to us. I didn't think he'd stoop that low."

"He's a Gamemaker Peeta, he doesn't have any morals when it comes to the game and it's pieces."

Peeta embraces me softly, and I wrap my arms around him and rub his back. I feel my shoulder dampen and little sobs emanate from him.

"Lets go home Peeta."

"Back to the apartment?" He looks at me hopefully, wishing I'd say no, back to 12. But I nod instead, me and Peeta can't be seen to run away from the Capitol, not now, even though we want to terribly. He never agreed with the decision to have one last Hunger Games, and has been fighting it all the way. But for the cameras, and Panem, we have to remain as one, a strong solid unit that can overcome anything.

Tonight it's him who wakes me with his nightmares, though it's close. That little girl had transformed into Prim, advancing at me with that manic grin and that pointy knife. But it's Peetas screams and thrashing about that rouses me before she has a chance to kill me, and for once I'm grateful we're so damaged. I shake him awake, and when his beautiful blue eyes rest on mine I smile. In these last few weeks, the tables have turned. I'm Peetas rock now, not him mine. Though we both have nightmares, mine come quicker than his, and I realise this is the first time I've had to wake him up. We stare at each other for an age, our fingers interlocked, hardly blinking in the moonlight. I drift off again, and have a nightmare, but it's an old one, my father down in the mine. I'm used to it, so I don't scream.

I knew I loved Peeta from the second I shouted his name in our first games. That love grew and grew until I knew that I would love no one else like him, would never leave his side and be with him forever. After watching Annie and Finnick after the rescue, that inseparable bond that was a universe that contained only them, that no one else mattered but that one person, I started to look for that connection. What we had was close, insanely close to what that felt like. But I never reached that level, until a Thursday afternoon.


	3. Chapter 3

It was the winter after the rebellion had overthrown the Capitol, bitterly cold but easier to manage with regular food supplies and indoor heating. Annie had just phoned me to tell me the baby was a boy, and he'll be called Finnick, of course. She cried for a moment at the mention of his name, and then drifted out of this world, and I was screaming down the phone at her before she came back, as if nothing had happened. We'd been calling at least once a week, all of the victors, to keep in touch because after what we'd been through, you didn't want to forget your allies. After I put the phone down I pottered about the empty house. Countless times Peeta had asked to move in with me, but I kept saying no, that I needed my space. He would still arrive everyday at seven to sleep next to me, to kiss me and cuddle me and love me in ways no man had ever done before. But the snow drifts outside were getting bigger, and I made the decision to call him and tell him to stay at home. I made some toast and slathered on butter. Eating every mouthful slowly, I stared at the phone. Waiting until I had finished the toast, I pulled the receiver to my ear, and was about to dial his number when there was a pain in my heart and my head, an ache that had never happened to me before, at least not to this extent. Loneliness crippled me, and I bunched up on the floor cradling my broken body. All this time I had wanted Peeta, more than anything, but this was something more. I _needed_ him. Not to just wake me from my nightmares and soothe me, but to just be there, all the time not just when I felt like it. I knew then how Annie and Finnick felt. I knew then how Peeta felt about me. Every second apart was another pinprick in the heart, too many and it'll break.

When my resolve had been set, the pain went quick enough, and I was on the phone to him ranting and raving and rambling about my revelation. I asked him to get over here, to bring his suitcase and never leave me, never part from my side again. He didn't say anything. Another thing to love about him. He knew when to talk, and when to say nothing because his silence had spoken every word that was needed. In three minutes, he had packed his stuff and was pushing open the door to my house. We didn't speak, he put down his suitcase and brushed the snow off his coat and hat. All the time he milled about I just stared at him, my arms folded tightly holding me together, standing on my tiptoes so I could see every inch of him. Then he looked at me, smiling that soft, gentle and true smile, his eyes shining. We embraced, and our bodies intertwined until there was nothing but each other.

"Stay with me," I said, my voice so quiet I thought I had imagined it.

"Always."


End file.
